Are You Depressed? Anxiety and Fear? It’s Time to Heal

Are you depressed? Have anxiety and fear made a shambles of your life? Perhaps grief, trauma, or anger are holding you hostage. Whatever it is, I’d say it’s time to heal. What’s your take?

It isn’t difficult to understand why you’ve ‘had it!’ After all, you’ve used every arrow in your quiver and the enemy continues to advance. But maybe another arrow has been within reach all along – you just didn’t know it was there…

Yes, I’m willing to take the hit for the “Duh!” statement of the new year: “Whatever it is, I’d say it’s time to heal.”

That said, if the question “Are you depressed?” gets your attention, or if anxiety and fear – whatever troubling circumstances – have turned your life upside-down, there’s often great value in turning attention to the obvious and assumed. What’s the old saying? “Don’t lose the forest for the trees.”

Listen, you’ve been living in misery long enough. And I’m guessing you’ve turned to every imaginable healing alternative – therapy, meds, lifestyle changes, and more. Still, there you are, stuck in the mud.

It isn’t difficult to understand why you’ve “had it!” After all, you’ve used every arrow in your quiver and the enemy continues to advance. But maybe another arrow has been within reach all along – you just didn’t know it was there…

In an effort to cover each and every recovery base, have you ever asked yourself if it was time to heal? Better yet, have you told yourself the time to heal is now? Better, better yet – have you given yourself permission to proceed?

How ’bout a bit of psychobabble? As an anxiety and mood disorder veteran, and a counselor, I’ve always believed in the power of cognitive theory, and its associated therapy. They’re just the right fit for the “Are you depressed?” issue, as well as anxiety and fear – and other maladies.

Boiling it down, cognitive theory submits that our emotions/feelings and behavior are driven by our patterns of thought and belief. Key are automatic thoughts, which are internalized perceptions we involuntarily generate. Automatic thoughts are most often triggered as we become aware of a situation or circumstance of great impact. They come on quickly and fly beneath the inquiry/logic radar.

That sure as heck endows automatic thoughts with tons of power, don’t you think? That being the case, it’s important to routinely monitor, feed, and adjust how we’re thinking and in what we believe.

As it applies to this particular chat, we really need to ensure that we’ve accomplished the obvious and perhaps assumed: directly influencing our thought and belief inventory by giving ourselves permission to heal. And even if we think we’ve already done so, a bit of confirmation sure couldn’t hurt.

It may seem like a no-brainer; however, never forget – how our immediate circumstances are to be managed is our responsibility. And that means the misery within which we do or don’t live is a matter of personal choice.

As you approach this very important task, I’d like to share one of my poems. I believe it’s a great fit…